17 January 2012 | Rebecca Ellinor
Procurement professionals tell Rebecca Ellinor how they got an audience with school children to persuade them to consider a purchasing career.
When CIPS president David Smith launched his theme for the year – to make procurement the profession of choice – he called on senior buyers to help. He told SM: “I want to challenge Fellows, senior practitioners, the great, the good and those who believe our profession has served them well to help sustain its future. I will ask them to commit a little of their time and expertise.
“The benefits will be significant. Would they mentor someone, do something, give a little more back? We want to show people worldwide that it’s an attractive profession, it’s important and you can make real changes in business and economies.”
Smith wants to raise the profession’s profile and attract everyone from school children and young people to those thinking about a career change – and he needs procurement professionals to spread the word. SM is supporting the move with the ‘profession of choice’ campaign. To help senior practitioners get involved, we’ll be running a series of articles on those who have given up time to raise the profile of procurement and show you how you can do the same.
In this first piece, we speak to senior professionals who have braved an audience of teenagers.
Bristol
Tom Casey is procurement manager of BPO and call centres at Everything Everywhere, which combines the Orange and T-Mobile brands. His company supports him in giving up about four days a year to speak to groups of 14 to 18 year olds. He covers the Bristol area and has worked through an organisation called Business Dynamics for the past seven years.
So how does he go about it? “If you just talk at them they will find it boring. I tell them I have the best job in the world and that’s the hook. I ask what they want from their career, to which they tend to say money, recognition and flexibility. I tell them procurement is well paid, has opportunities for travel and is involved with the green agenda.
“I then explain about business and how they can get into it – perhaps via apprenticeships, local colleges or by getting into a small business – and then I split them into groups and we play a game.”
Casey allocates each team £5 of working capital and they negotiate for the cost of materials to make hats that they can sell back to him.
At the end, he highlights those that have done particularly well and the winning team with the most efficient operation wins a box of sweets.
“You need to do something interactive and a competition usually works well. And I’m not a teacher, but you do have to be a bit
strict with them at times.”
Birmingham
Susan Randall and Melanie Halstead from the
Birmingham branch of CIPS, which celebrates its 80th anniversary on 4 April, delivered a one-hour workshop to 20 16 to 18 year old business studies students at Grace Academy near Solihull in November. Randall is an experienced purchasing practitioner and Halstead is qualified to teach 14 year olds and older.
The workshop consisted of an interactive exercise to demonstrate supplier selection, share their experiences as purchasing professionals and educate the group on the importance of purchasing to an organisation.
Following the exercise, students were asked to write a sentence about procurement. “Purchasing is an important part of every business,” said one. “It’s good to hear about purchasing from someone who works for a business,’’ said another.
Following the presentation, John Boyle, a teacher at the school, said: “I’m pretty certain you have motivated many students and a few now have a possible career path to pursue.”
Janice Allen, director of services at Allen Ward Associates and the early learning officer for the Birmingham CIPS branch is working with Solihull for Success to reach local schools, colleges and the wider business community to promote awareness of purchasing.
Jersey
Peter Rushton, CEO of Optimum Procurement and former CIPS president, spoke to a group of 18 and 19 year olds at Highlands College in Jersey last year.
He says teachers, careers’ officers and heads of year have the “keys to the door” when it comes to getting in front of an audience of potential future buyers. “These people are very busy, so you need to find the correct person to approach.”
Business studies students, whether school age or older, often have outside guest speakers in, so that’s a good place to start.
Once in the door, he advises: “Don’t pretend you’re their dad or their mate – you’ve got to pitch it at the right level. You must try to get a level of engagement and preferably participation that isn’t seen as patronising, so don’t try to behave like a cool 25 year old when you’re a much older 46 year old (ie like their mate) or equally behave like a dull 46 year old talking down to them (ie like their Dad).”
After giving an overview of the role, Rushton did a ‘power of procurement’ exercise, to demonstrate how you can double profits if you rethink the way you buy goods and services. He then explained about the opportunities and pay and gave some practical advice for next steps – such as looking at the CIPS website.
“They find the international aspects very appealing, as well as the opportunities for progression and the chance to be in a profession that is strategically significant.”
Also, he adds, for many of those who were considering marketing, the skills required are the same – such as communication, project management and teamwork.
“Afterwards, the teachers kept me back to say they were staggered by the career opportunities. They said they thought the profession had a really good story to tell and they guessed at least three of the group would probably seriously consider the profession.”
Procurement selling points
- The 10th Purchasing & Supply R£wards survey showed senior and middle ranking purchasing managers are more highly paid than marketing, sales, HR, IT and finance.
-
Opportunities for global travel and using skills across private, public and third sectors.
- Play a strategic role in business. CIPS Time to Take Stock report highlighted growing interest in procurement.
- Good career path and ability to move business.
5 quick facts about CIPS
1. CIPS has more than 65,000 members in 150 countries and offices in South Africa, Australia, the Middle East, UK and, imminently, China.
2. It promotes and develops standards and skills, offers best practice techniques and leading-edge thinking.
3. The UK Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ indices are key economic indicators used by the Bank of England and organisations worldwide.
4. Members sign up to a code of ethics.
5. CIPS’ goal is to achieve a ‘Licence
to Practice’ for the profession and support capacity and capability training in the developing world.
☛ Get in touch to let us know how you plan to promote the procurement profession by emailing rebecca.ellinor@supplymanagement.com
